1452) Barbarians Within The Gate

To civilize a barbarian is easy. What's hard is to civilize a barbarian who thinks he is better than you. I am willing to concede that our Turcocentric pundits may know more about Turks than I do, but I know something about us that they may not, namely, we are not all as civilized as we think we are and, . . . which is worse, there are those among us who don't seem to be favorably disposed towards civilization.

DISAPPOINTMENT
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We are disappointed in people because we cannot be objective about them, which means that the source of disappointment is not them but us.

HYENAS
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There is a type of reader who follows you from a safe distance hoping you will stumble, fall, and break your neck so that he can feast on your carcass,

FIRST AND LAST IMPRESSIONS
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My first impression of Canada: I thought I had landed on an alien planet. I now feel that way when I visit an Armenian community center.

ON THE ART OF WRITING
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I will tell you all I know about writing provided you promise to ignore and forget everything I say. What matters in writing is not following in someone else's footsteps but in finding your own path.

I LOVE BRAHMS
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After a visit and on his way out, Brahms would say, "I apologize to anyone I may have failed to insult."

ON COPS
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Charles-Louis Philippe: "It is practically impossible to speak to a policeman without seeming to lie to him."

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REFLECTIONS AND COMMENTS
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To achieve excellence is easy. What's hard is discovering the specific endeavor in which you are destined to excel.

Someday, somewhere everything will be explained, by which time we may no longer be in need of explanations.

Readers are less interested to know how honest or wise you are and more interested to know how dishonest and foolish you have been. What's the use of being positive in your assessment of yourself when others have an eye only for the negative?

There was a time when I wrote nothing but fiction. I continue to write fiction today but only to expose it.

To write against propaganda is to expose fiction.

Our national prestige is a fiction of our collective imagination.

Both dupes and charlatans live in a world of fiction where they imagine themselves to be not only honest and wise but also patriotic.

There is more imagination in conspiracy theories than in science fiction. * The Goncourt Brothers: "To believe in nothing is as bad as any religion."

Victor Hugo: "Crowds are good only for rioting. For a revolution you need people."

Raymond Queneau: "Humor tries to purge the idiotic from great and noble sentiments."

Raymond Aron: "Every belief system begins as a heresy."

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LIONS AND APES
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Victor Hugo: "Imitate nothing and no one. A lion that copies another lion is an ape."

All brainwashed people behave like apes.

I don't mind admitting that I was brainwashed as surely and thoroughly as any Bolshevik or Nazi; and if you think you were not, it may be because they have done a better job on you. Either that or you are too infatuated with your fiction to relinquish it in exchange of something that will be less flattering to your ego or superego.

My motto: Suspect everything that is flattering to your vanity.

If you search for the negative in the positive, you will find it; and that may save you from making an ass of yourself in the future.

Anything that removes or distances us from the reality principle is to be discarded. To put it differently: our choice is between reality and Alice's Wonderland. And remember: reality can be more fantastic than any fantasy. Reality turns against us only if we ignore its inflexible laws.

What makes us trust our political leaders is not love of truth but love of country. The degree of patriotism in a man is relative to the spread of the real estate he owns. There are entire continents today populated by rejects, heretics, exiles, and white trash. A reasonable man is one who places love of truth above love of real estate, that is to say, dirt.

When it comes to politics and religion, every assertion is open to contradiction. When two sets of apes or brainwashed people maintain some contradictions are capital offenses, the result will be war and massacre.

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WHITE TRASH I
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In an interview published in ESQUIRE James Watson, the DNA biologist, raises the following question: "Why do we have a government that's run by rich trash?" His answer: "Because they've used their money to buy the presidency."

WHITE TRASH II
******************************
We share this in common with Turks: we think to apologize is for weaklings and losers. I remember, during the Soviet era, because I dared to criticize the regime, I would receive many hostile phone calls and letters questioning my patriotism. When the Soviet Empire collapsed, none of these gentlemen wrote or called to say he had been wrong. And I will never forget the letter written by one of these chic Bolsheviks, a white-haired elder statesman with a heart condition, which was so offensive that I was too stunned to reply in kind; and for a change, luck was on my side, because shortly thereafter I read his obituary. Had I retaliated, I would have felt partly responsible for his unexpected demise.

WHITE TRASH III
**********************************
We may have a better chance to come to terms with Turks on the day we show a willingness to listen to their side of the story. I say this in view of the fact that they have already gone as far as conceding that they will gladly plead guilty as charged provided we don't escalate our demands. Probably a bogus condition, because they are smart enough to know that we are incapable of reaching a consensus on any issue, and they can always rely on an extremist minority to reject all preconditions.

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ON A QUINTESSENTIALLY
ARMENIAN ABERRATION
***************************************
We have all met the arrogant ignoramus who, just because he knows something about Armenians you don't know, says with an air of self-satisfaction bordering on triumph: "And you call yourself an Armenian?" Asserting superiority even on flimsiest of grounds must be a quintessentially Armenian need. One reason why we have allowed the Genocide to become a collective addiction is that it allows us a sense of moral superiority. There is even a type of writer who, after writing about the Genocide, finds it extremely difficult to write about anything else. Writing about Turks, atrocities, and lies makes them feel morally superior, and the need to feel morally superior is especially pronounced in bastards.

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ON PROPAGANDA AND
RELATED ATROCITIES
****************************************************

On the radio this morning: "Censorship: When the powerful tell the less powerful what to say."

Where there is power, there will also be propaganda.

Do we practice censorship? If you ask this question to a dupe or charlatan, you will never get the right answer.

It is the heights of naiveté to think that only the enemy engages in propaganda.

Alice completely divorced herself from reality by following a rabbit into a hole. The difference between Alice and the propagandist who believes in his own propaganda is that the propagandist becomes a permanent resident of Wonderland.

If we are alienated, it may be because our thought processes have been contaminated by propaganda.

Propaganda alienates people by divorcing them from reality, which is also what happens to compulsive liars when they start believing in their own lies. This may explain the short-lived and disastrous regimes under Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin. As they became more and more dependent on their own lies, they further removed themselves from reality and its inflexible laws, one of them being, you cannot fool all the people, including yourself, all the time.

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Because I don't particularly care for loudmouth imbeciles who pretend to be smart, they say I don't like Armenians.

Good explanations are not final answers, only small steps in their general direction.

To be dependent on the goodwill and understanding of another is to live in oppression.

It is not that he has a low opinion of you; rather, he has a very high opinion of himself.

Man doesn't hate the truth, only those who speak it.

I have yet to see a politician, even an honest one, who did not sound like a compulsive liar.

Amiel: "One becomes a charlatan without knowing it."

Sainte-Beuve: "Celebrity might as well be synonymous with prostitution."

Lamartine: "Homeland: a structure that stands on the ashes of the dead."

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Ara Baliozian

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Readers Comments

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Dear Ara the Sledge hammerman,

I had to time to comment on some of your recent articles which I read all, even if late, not because of your name or whatever you call yourself, but because I like to try to understand your life philosophy, which I enjoy sharing most of the time. This last bulletin was intercepted in time, and I wish to convey my "reader's remarks" in short notes in respective paragraphs.

1452) Barbarians Within The Gate
To civilize a barbarian is easy. What's hard is to civilize a barbarian who thinks he is better than you. I am willing to concede that our Turcocentric pundits may know more about Turks than I do, but I know something about us that they may not, namely, we are not all as civilized as we think we are and, . . . which is worse, there are those among us who don't seem to be favorably disposed towards civilization. Since the World has been taught for over a century that Turks are the worst barbarians (I have too many sayings)

I beg to be excused for voicing as a "barbarian". The irony is that those who call themselves "civilized" have "done the worse barbarities" in those world.

DISAPPOINTMENT
We are disappointed in people because we cannot be objective about them, which means that the source of disappointment is not them but us. Yes!

HYENAS
There is a type of reader who follows you from a safe distance hoping you will stumble, fall, and break your neck so that he can feast on your carcass,

Not me Ara, I follow you from close distance... I dislike to make enemies or taken for an enemy. I am a peaceful man, but my flesh is hard, to bite by any hyenas.

FIRST AND LAST IMPRESSIONS
My first impression of Canada: I thought I had landed on an alien planet. I now feel that way when I visit an Armenian community center. No comment, I don't go if not invited!

ON THE ART OF WRITING
I will tell you all I know about writing provided you promise to ignore and forget everything I say. What matters in writing is not following in someone else's footsteps but in finding your own path. Sure, "our compass of logic" shows the same direction of "knowledge, compassion, co-existence, love instead of hate etc.."

I LOVE BRAHMS
After a visit and on his way out, Brahms would say, "I apologize to anyone I may have failed to insult." No comment, I never wanted to be as great or impolite as Brahms!

ON COPS
Charles-Louis Philippe: "It is practically impossible to speak to a policeman without seeming to lie to him." Sure, "they are paid not to believe, even other cops"

REFLECTIONS AND COMMENTS
To achieve excellence is easy. What's hard is discovering the specific endeavor in which you are destined to excel.

Someday, somewhere everything will be explained, by which time we may no longer be in need of explanations.
Readers are less interested to know how honest or wise you are and more interested to know how dishonest and foolish you have been. What's the use of being positive in your assessment of yourself when others have an eye only for the negative?

There was a time when I wrote nothing but fiction. I continue to write fiction today but only to expose it.
To write against propaganda is to expose fiction.

Our national prestige is a fiction of our collective imagination. !!!

Both dupes and charlatans live in a world of fiction where they imagine themselves to be not only honest and wise but also patriotic. Sure, this is the scope of their wisdom!

There is more imagination in conspiracy theories than in science fiction. * The Goncourt Brothers: "To believe in nothing is as bad as any religion." I am afraid, very true !

Victor Hugo: "Crowds are good only for rioting. For a revolution you need people." Question: How do you count people, by bodies or brains ?

Raymond Queneau: "Humor tries to purge the idiotic from great and noble sentiments." Yes!
Raymond Aron: "Every belief system begins as a heresy." Yes!

LIONS AND APES
Victor Hugo: "Imitate nothing and no one. A lion that copies another lion is an ape." Sure, if you feel you should copy another ape, thinking he is a lion !

All brainwashed people behave like apes. Sometimes, washing brains is easier than washing bodies, it consumes no water, just empty words...

I don't mind admitting that I was brainwashed as surely and thoroughly as any Bolshevik or Nazi; and if you think you were not, it may be because they have done a better job on you. Either that or you are too infatuated with your fiction to relinquish it in exchange of something that will be less flattering to your ego or superego.

My motto: Suspect everything that is flattering to your vanity. Definitely, doubt everything you hear, read or see... You cannot learn, unless you doubt, even your wife!

If you search for the negative in the positive, you will find it; and that may save you from making an ass of yourself in the future. It can be the other way around as well...

Anything that removes or distances us from the reality principle is to be discarded. To put it differently: our choice is between reality and Alice's Wonderland. And remember: reality can be more fantastic than any fantasy. Reality turns against us only if we ignore its inflexible laws. Laws seldom accords realities, which are relevant until opposite proven.

What makes us trust our political leaders is not love of truth but love of country. The degree of patriotism in a man is relative to the spread of the real estate he owns. There are entire continents today populated by rejects, heretics, exiles, and white trash. A reasonable man is one who places love of truth above love of real estate, that is to say, dirt. Yes!

When it comes to politics and religion, every assertion is open to contradiction. When two sets of apes or brainwashed people maintain some contradictions are capital offenses, the result will be war and massacre. Regrettably very true, but who would admit it? Heroes who cause, or innocent dying for being martyrs!

WHITE TRASH I
In an interview published in ESQUIRE James Watson, the DNA biologist, raises the following question: "Why do we have a government that's run by rich trash?" His answer: "Because they've used their money to buy the presidency." Presidency only ? What do the Armenian Lobbyists get ? Pop corn or honeyed money for raising hands?

WHITE TRASH II
We share this in common with Turks: we think to apologize is for weaklings and losers. I remember, during the Soviet era, because I dared to criticize the regime, I would receive many hostile phone calls and letters questioning my patriotism. When the Soviet Empire collapsed, none of these gentlemen wrote or called to say he had been wrong. And I will never forget the letter written by one of these chic Bolsheviks, a white-haired elder statesman with a heart condition, which was so offensive that I was too stunned to reply in kind; and for a change, luck was on my side, because shortly thereafter I read his obituary. Had I retaliated, I would have felt partly responsible for his unexpected demise.
Humans are alike, in all countries and regimes...

WHITE TRASH III
We may have a better chance to come to terms with Turks on the day we show a willingness to listen to their side of the story. I say this in view of the fact that they have already gone as far as conceding that they will gladly plead guilty as charged provided we don't escalate our demands. Probably a bogus condition, because they are smart enough to know that we are incapable of reaching a consensus on any issue, and they can always rely on an extremist minority to reject all preconditions. I object classification of individuals, by race, religion, nationality like animals but standing on two legs instead of four! There is more trash inside those RULING the World! I have some 30 pages of "compliments (!)" about Turks (!) and quite a few also for Armenians, spoken by the same Brain Washers!

ON A QUINTESSENTIALLY ARMENIAN ABERRATION
We have all met the arrogant ignoramus who, just because he knows something about Armenians you don't know, says with an air of self-satisfaction bordering on triumph: "And you call yourself an Armenian?" Asserting superiority even on flimsiest of grounds must be a quintessentially Armenian need. One reason why we have allowed the Genocide to become a collective addiction is that it allows us a sense of moral superiority. There is even a type of writer who, after writing about the Genocide, finds it extremely difficult to write about anything else. Writing about Turks, atrocities, and lies makes them feel morally superior, and the need to feel morally superior is especially pronounced in bastards.

In this war of slinging shits, even though the Dashnaks archives are kept locked, I am afraid that the documents available from non-Turkish sources, prove that what Dashnaks did (and are still following) stinks much worse... Behind all this fanfare, "a large community is milked, and very few are eating the butter, buttering others as well". Who cares for the poor Armenians in Armenia fed on animosity and deprivation, instead of "making and eating bread together". The bull\s eye is the delicate matter of "compensations and donations" and those who get their "service cuts" on those, to buy more in this world, not transferable to the other side. All the riches of the pharaohs were found untouched in the tombs! Churches say they do, but truly cannot make any transfers , but enjoy alms boxes!

ON PROPAGANDA AND RELATED ATROCITIES
Until such time that my book comes out, as an appetizer I suggest that you read No. 1449 and the boasting of the Dashnaks at Copenhagen in 1910, which is enough proof of their "innocence by revolution". Lara should have mentioned their organizations in the villages,,,

On the radio this morning: "Censorship: When the powerful tell the less powerful what to say."
Where there is power, there will also be propaganda.

Do we practice censorship? If you ask this question to a dupe or charlatan, you will never get the right answer.

It is the heights of naivety to think that only the enemy engages in propaganda.
Alice completely divorced herself from reality by following a rabbit into a hole. The difference between Alice and the propagandist who believes in his own propaganda is that the propagandist becomes a permanent resident of Wonderland.
If we are alienated, it may be because our thought processes have been contaminated by propaganda.
Propaganda alienates people by divorcing them from reality, which is also what happens to compulsive liars when they start believing in their own lies. This may explain the short-lived and disastrous regimes under Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin. As they became more and more dependent on their own lies, they further removed themselves from reality and its inflexible laws, one of them being, you cannot fool all the people, including yourself, all the time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Because I don't particularly care for loudmouth imbeciles who pretend to be smart, they say I don't like Armenians.

Good explanations are not final answers, only small steps in their general direction.
To be dependent on the goodwill and understanding of another is to live in oppression.
It is not that he has a low opinion of you; rather, he has a very high opinion of himself.
Man doesn't hate the truth, only those who speak it.
I have yet to see a politician, even an honest one, who did not sound like a compulsive liar.
Amiel: "One becomes a charlatan without knowing it." Sure, that's why I try to learn, even from your writings.

Sainte-Beuve: "Celebrity might as well be synonymous with prostitution." Sure!
Lamartine: "Homeland: a structure that stands on the ashes of the dead." Sure!

Turkish proverb: "He who speaks the truth, is kicked out of nine villages"... So don't feel bad if you are not liked by some dupes... All the best - Sukru

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